Genesis of a Healer
by Tangerine-Alert
Summary: Harry Sullivan travelled with the Doctor. Then Sullivan arrived on Skaro, without the Doctor. Trapped in a war zone, trapped on Skaro he must survive until the Doctor and Sarah arrive. Healer to the Kaleds, one side of the Thousand Year War, Sullivan is forever changed.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Sullivan peeled off his sweat soaked gloves and dumped them into the recycler. Everything on Skaro was recycled. He'd learnt that and many other things quickly.

He shakily removed the bloodied gown he was wearing that covered up his _Medical Elite_ clothing and dumped it into another nearby bin.

He was used the the shaking, he'd been on another 30 hour work period. Saving lives. Kaled lives in this never ending war against the Thals.

Moving from the windowless room to a windowless corridor he passed some bodies on stretchers being supervised by one of the nurses.

"More for the harvesting Tarak old chap?" He asked, although he wasn't very interested. They were still living and breathing Kaleds.

"Yes Healer Elite Sullivan." He said snapping to attention using Sullivan's full title.

Tarak had been one of the potential harvesting candidates, except he had higher than expected intelligence. Higher than expected for a soldier.

Sullivan had interjected in the harvesting process. Something he had wished to do many other times since he had arrived here.

Sullivan nodded, he didn't have anything further to say. "Carry on Tarak," he paused, thinking to say more and then decided he just couldn't.

He walked without thinking out of the Medical Elite building that he worked within on the edge of the dome to the sleeping space he had within the nearby building.

As a Medical Elite he was given some modicum of space within the building, but even what he had; two rooms space for sleeping and whatever else was luxury compared to some.

Sullivan collapsed onto the bed within the sleeping space, passing out from sheer exhaustion as he had done almost every day.

Almost every day working and living in a war zone.

Living with the Kaleds.

Living on Skaro.

-/ - \\\\-

Sullivan woke, somewhat rested, to hear Valyes moving around their 'flat' as Sullivan sometimes thought of it as.

It was hardly even as luxurious as that. There wasn't even anything like a kitchenette. Just somewhere that cold water came out of. There was no need for an Elite such as him to be concerned about food, all that and very little more was provided by the Medical Elite.

In here in his sleeping space he had access to some foods that others in the dome did not. Food he could _choose_ to eat, when he wished. Nutrient bars and a fruit concentrate drink. Luxuries that most of the population did not have access to. Their food was gained in the food halls across the dome.

He did have access to bathing facilities with what might called hot water. Occasionally.

"You shouldn't be up and moving Valyes." Sullivan said pushing himself up off the bed and walking out.

Valyes coughed. His 'burns' had started to get worse. His cough had been with him since he'd first encountered him.

3 years ago.

-/ - \\\\-

They'd all been standing around those blasted transmat balls.

On Earth.

Earth of the future, after the solar flares.

How he wished he was back there. Even with that Sontaran and the Earth ruined.

How he wished he was back on Nerva.

How he wished...

-/ - \\\\-

"I won't ask Valyes," Sullivan said.

"Good. Sullivan." That was how their conversations went.

Valyes had regenerated 3 times since he'd met him. Each time was worse.

"At least you're conscious." Sullivan said as he ripped open a nutrient bar.

Valyes coughed or maybe he laughed. There was no blood present. That was something to be counted for.

Sullivan had become quite knowledgable. Valyes' needed someone to assist him. Some of the time.

"Yes. Sullivan. Conscious. Such few _pleasures_ to be had. Unconsciousness comes so rarely, rare. Still a respite." He spat something into the sink.

Sullivan didn't bother to look, not at whatever was in the sink or at the crippled man. Time Lord.

This, their conversation so far was a good day.

-/ - \\\\-

He'd arrived on what he knew now to be Skaro in a rush of pain and light and found the Time Lord he now knew as Valyes in pain, burnt and scarred by weapons unknown to him.

He'd not learnt the full extent of who Valyes was and why both he and Sullivan were here until they had integrated themselves into Kaled society.

That had been easier enough. The Time Ring. This thing that could grow to the size of a bracelet or the size of a finger ring. It allowed Valyes along with some other things to insert himself and Sullivan into the lives of the Kaleds.

It was fortunate that Sullivan had some useful skills, Valyes had said. So few of the Doctor's companions did.

-/ - \\\\-

Sullivan exhaled, chewing the nutrient bar in thought. "Do you need anything Valyes?"

Valyes looked at him, his face blackened and scarred; temporal weapons damage. Not even regeneration helped.

Valyes shook his head in short bursts. Sullivan was aware that even doing that was painful for the injured Time Lord. Although Sullivan wasn't sure the extent of the pain. Few pain modifiers he and the Kaleds had access to could work on a Time Lord.

None could kill a Time Lord.

"No, Sullivan. I am..." He paused. "Feeling better," he paused again and looked at Sullivan. "I fear that means another rejuvenation is pending."

Sullivan nodded. 'Rejuvenation' or Regeneration. Valyes had called them different things in his different bodies. The different faces he wore after such events. The men he'd been so far.

This one had been a little more forthcoming than the first Valyes he had known.

It had been three different incarnations of Valyes and more than two years before Sullivan pieced together everything of how he came to be here.

Valyes at first had not trusted him.

A mere human.

Especially now, one working with the Time Lord's enemy. Working and saving the Kaled's lives.

-/ - \\\\-

He remembered the smoke, the fire, the guns, the gas. The Wastelands.

That was what he remembered upon arriving on Skaro.

Peripherally he remembered getting through the minefield and Valyes doing something to the guards who'd let them into the dome.

Valyes he now knew had been in immense pain during all of that.

For Sullivan it remained something of a blur. Something he'd walled up in his mind.

Some of it, the techniques for coping, for keeping his mind sorted, Valyes, just not the first one he had known had taught him.

-/ - \\\\-

The Time Lords were at war with the Daleks.

That was a word Sarah had said, something she'd encountered.

Something evil.

Sullivan didn't often admit it to Valyes.

But he felt both sides of this war were evil.

The Thals were just as bad as the Kaleds.

They both had nasty genetic politics at play.

Davros and the Scientific Elite definitely had that.

Davros was part of why he was here. Why both he and Valyes were here.

The Time Lords were at war with the Daleks in the future.

Valyes had been tasked with disrupting them somehow.

He had decided, with his leader's blessing, or at least that's what Sullivan had gathered, to intercept the Doctor and send him on a path to disrupt the Daleks' development or even avert their creation.

But something had gone wrong.

Valyes and whoever he was working with had intercepted the Transmat beam on Earth. Valyes had also been en-route to Skaro. But he'd been hit with some sort of temporal weapon by the Daleks.

Valyes and Sullivan had been shoved out of the beam here and now.

The Doctor and Sarah would have continued on.

Something about the Doctor and Sarah's "biodata" being more in sync. Or something about Sarah having travelled more in time meaning she was more protected.

Valyes had been closest to the weapons hit.

Sullivan had just been the unlucky chap in the middle.

The worst thing was Valyes couldn't tell him how far or how long the Doctor could turn up. He'd said when they'd first arrived that it'd be less than 6 months.

After his second regeneration he'd said the figure was more likely less than 5 years.

-/ - \\\\-

Finishing the nutrient bar he looked at the Time Lord. "Will you still be you when I return?"

Valyes laughed a short bark, coughing as he did so. "Probably."

Sullivan gave the Time Lord a smile. "Good. I'd miss our chats."

-/ - \\\\-

Only 20 hours.

Sullivan thought to himself as he made his way back to his sleeping space.

There was blood on the pot marked floor. At one point it had been white, probably, from what he'd seen within other spaces it was all the same. These medical sleeping spaces had been like the other medical buildings, white with purple highlights. But that was over 500 years ago. Still a long time into the war.

"Sullivan." Valyes croaked.

Sullivan rushed in to find Valyes had deteriorated a lot. He was weeping blood and other fluids from everywhere.

Sullivan didn't bother to rush, to get anything. He just took Valyes' bloody hand in his.

The last time had been bad.

The first time Valyes had yelled at him.

Humans couldn't withstand being near a Time Lord when they regenerated.

The second time he had stood by his bed, Sullivan had felt the energy wash over him. It had been painful, it felt like the energy had washed and ripped through him and then it abated and a new man, skill battle scarred was sitting on the bed beside him.

The last time he had sat with him and again, he had felt the energy rip through his body.

"It changes you. Being exposed to a Time Lord regenerating Sullivan." Valyes croaked, but didn't try to force his hand out of Sullivan's soft grip.

"I've already changed, you said, wearing this Time Ring for so long." Sullivan said. "I wish sometimes we could just override it and leave."

Valyes coughed. Sullivan realised it was a laugh. "And leave your beloved Sarah Jane Smith and the Doctor here?"

"If they arrive." Sullivan commented darkly. Valyes had assured him the Transmat beam would protect them and they'd arrive when and where they were meant to. It was the two of them that were dispensable.

"They will, their biodata will unlock the time travel facility of the Time-" He coughed and he gripped Sullivan's hand.

Light started to envelope Valyes' body as the changes, the rejuvenation, the regeneration of the Time Lord's body began. Rewriting and changing him.

Then it was over and a new face, a new man was lying on the bed.

Still scarred, even more so than he had been previously.

With, if Sullivan understood it even less life than the last.

That was the curse of the weapon the Daleks had used on the Time Lords.

Sullivan gathered _if_ Valyes survived this regeneration his next few would come in the coming months, if he was lucky.

The light and energy died down and Valyes let go of Sullivan's hand.

Sullivan looked down at it, the blood was left on his hand but on Valyes he had been restored to some semblance of health.

Sullivan made to get up when Valyes spoke.

"Sullivan. Harry." He began in a new voice, a new tone. "Stay, please." He said haltingly. "I want you here." He said, his voice full of worry, maybe even terror.

-/ - \\\\-

6 months.

That's what Valyes had said to him. When he'd been on his tenth regeneration.

That's what he estimated he had to live.

Sullivan looked through the diary Valyes had left him. As a member of the CIA, the Celestial Intervention Agency, no one was meant to see this dimensionally transcendental book.

So much had changed in 6 months.

Sullivan had discovered from Valyes that he'd changed.

-/ - \\\\-

"You've been in far too close contact Sullivan when I've regenerated." Valyes was sitting up against the bed eating a nutrient bar. He was also far more talkative that his previous life.

"You've said that before Valyes old thing. I don't know what that means." Sullivan paused. Valyes looked at him expectantly. "I've felt some pain. But..."

"It's nothing to serving with the Kaleds." Valyes said.

Sullivan shook his head. "They're both bad," Sullivan sighed. "I can't help have some compassion for the Kaleds." Valyes stared at him. "They have been under constant attack for a 1000 years. Whoever started the fight." Sullivan paused. "I see the damage it's been doing," he said. "And the choices made," he finished thinking on his own choices that he'd been forced to make.

Organ transplants from those deemed to be 'recycled', too injured or beyond the rehabilitation facilities to keep alive. Transplants into those in the Medical or Scientific elites. All able bodied Kaleds were part of the military or those associated with it. Anyone else worked to keep Kaled society going and alive.

"You will have changed Sullivan. Your biodata will have warped by exposure to a Time Lord's..." he trailed off. "Changes."

-/ - \\\\-

Sullivan flipped open the diary. Most of the entries were Valyes' in Gallifreyan. Some of it was in English and some was a mix of the two. His new found capabilities, bequeathed to him by Valyes.

Valyes had been preparing him, Sullivan knew that, and readying him for what he wanted him to do.

Valyes had indicated that going beyond his 12 regeneration would not just end his life in the most excruciating pain but do something destructive here to the timelines and the physical location.

Sullivan had thought surely that was good?

He'd asked why he couldn't go and kill Davros? If he was the man who created the Daleks and began all this.

According to Valyes it couldn't be that way.

There were 'complexities to the web of time'. It had to be the Doctor because he was the Doctor.

He was the one who might be able to change things.

"It is one of the things you should know Sullivan. Going forth into the future." Valyes had said.

Sullivan wrote the entry in carefully and slowly, in Gallifreyan. It was difficult, though not as difficult as it should have been.

Valyes had indicated he had some vestiges of a Time Lord called Salyavin within him. Whoever that was, it seemed to amuse him.

Finishing the entry he stood up and walked into the other room where Valyes lay, waiting reading a report that Sullivan had from the Medical Elite.

"Ah, Sullivan." He said as brightly as he could. Valyes' whole face was blackened like he'd been burnt with something high intensity.

Sullivan smiled weakly.

"Have you decided?" Valyes pressed.

Sullivan took his seat opposite the bed. "You leave me with an terrible choice old chap."

"I am old." Valyes said. "But a Time Lord." He coughed, cringing.

Sullivan told Valyes that he would do it. Do what Valyes requested.

The relief on the man's face, his whole body was evident.

Sullivan wasn't sure how much pain he was in, but when he'd...touched minds or whatever it was he'd dickied around with, he'd felt something and it made him shudder to think about.

-/ - \\\\-

Sullivan understood what Valyes was asking him to do.

But he knew he was suffering and in immense pain.

But this wasn't something he'd ever been prepared to do.

He'd never been prepared to travel in time either.

Or be stuck in a war zone.

But this.

To take a life.

A mercy killing.

This...

"Sullivan. Thank you. My friend." Valyes said. He was bleeding internally. The next regeneration could be his last and that might be fatal for everyone.

Sullivan punched out hard.

There was a nerve cluster under a Time Lord's shoulder. It would render him unconscious for the next part.

He'd kept it hidden and rolled up.

Two spikes to stab into the Time Lord's two hearts. It would prevent regeneration.

Valyes had instructed him exactly how to do it, to remove them and to trigger a 'small amount of regenerative energy'. Enough to vaporise his body.

None of the Kaleds could find his body. That would cause unimaginable damage to the timelines.

-/

When it was done and there was nothing but blackened ash left Sullivan sank to the floor and sobbed.

He hadn't done so since his first months arriving on Skaro.

Now, the only man who knew the truth, the only individual he could speak openly and honestly with was dead and gone.

Sullivan didn't know how long he sat sobbing and wishing for a drink.

-/

 _A/N:_

 _Valyes, the Time Lord here is the Time Lord dressed all in black who appears at the start of_ _ **Genesis of the Daleks**_ _._

 _Thanks for reading._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Sullivan was outside of the Medical Elite building doing a 'home visit'. That's what he mentally called the birthing dorms that were around the dome.

These ones held somewhat of a...distaste amongst some of the Medical Elite.

The women in these birthing dorms were near the end of their lives as far as reproduction went on Skaro.

They were nearly 40 and had been pregnant practically over and over. A steady machine for the Kaled's war.

They still worked in nearby industries.

But by this point in their final pregnancies it was far more difficult to find men to impregnate themselves.

It was the women that received assistance from the Kaled government when they became pregnant, not the men.

Sullivan had heard from some soldiers that he treated they thought these women _infected_ them.

From what Sullivan understood the successful pregnancies had been declining over the years.

Mutations were creeping in.

There was a disgusting attitude of disposing of these mutations, both the babies and those that appeared in the population further along in life into the Wastelands.

It was the chemical weapons that had been used earlier in the war.

Something that the Thals could no longer create, because the war had been going so long they had lost the ability.

Supposedly the Kaleds likewise, while innovating with great leaps and bounds no longer had the resources to create what they had once done.

Few Healers elected to come out here.

It was something he'd never specifically trained in, but something nonetheless he had knowledge of.

It helped to distract from the war and soldier's suffering that he was faced with everyday.

Removing the pads from the woman's stomach he tried to smile. "They look healthy."

"No mutations?" She asked bluntly. She was pregnant with her thirtieth pregnancy, however her body seemed to be doing well. Supplements and improvements from the Scientific Elite helped a lot of these women deliver successfully.

Sullivan shook his head. Although, the what he thought of as an advanced ultrasound let him see a lot it didn't show any obvious mutations.

It was easier just to lie than to explain this.

He suspected that this was all they wanted.

Packing up his equipment he made to leave. It was then he heard it, another one the bombs that was like a creeping barrage.

They hardly ever hit, and even less so this side of the dome which faced away from the Thal dome.

Then suddenly there was an explosion as it hit, unexpectedly and something threatened collapse.

Sullivan couldn't think for a moment, he just started shouting at the women to move as he held one of the supports of the dorms. At least that's all he could think as something burning dripped onto his back, burning until he passed out.

-/ - \\\\-

"What happened?" Sullivan croaked. He looked around, he was in his own Medical Elite building.

"Healer Elite Sullivan. You're awake." Said a voice.

Sullivan blinked. "Ravon?"

A man's face swam into view. Major Ravon was young, although all of Skaro's soldiers were. Sullivan had been sent to do inspections of the upper echelons of the Military Elite a year or two ago. Only a Healer Elite was trusted with Skaro's Military Elite, especially soldiers like Ravon who had risen through the ranks quickly and efficiently.

"You had some concerned." Ravon commented.

"Did the women get out?" Sullivan asked.

"All survived and safe thanks to you." Ravon commented. "A very selfless act."

Sullivan twisted and winced. "They hold our future within them."

"Healer Elite you should not be moving." Tarak's voice and face swam in to vision.

"I don't think so. Burns?" Sullivan asked.

Tarak nodded. "Yes Healer Elite."

"I've requested Scientific Elite stores to be released for treating you Sullivan." Ravon said.

"That should go to-" Sullivan started.

"There are few as capable as you Sullivan." Ravon began. "You should rest." Was all the man said before Sullivan passed out.

-/ - \\\\-

It had been over 3 months since the injury. Sullivan looked at his back in the mirror. He was restricted by the other Medical Elite to paper work for now. Whatever the gels and whatever else the Scientific Elite had provided mostly saved the nerves in his back, the chemical burns he had discovered was designed to weed its way into the nervous system. A sort of virus-like chemical attack.

"Healer Elite Sullivan." He heard a voice by his door. It was Nyder. He'd only met the man once before when he'd been asked to provide medical treatment to someone Nyder was interrogating.

"Nyder," Sullivan said by way of greeting.

"You are healing well?" Nyder asked, though it was hard to tell if he actually cared.

"Very. I should thank Ravon and whomever he found in the Scientific Elite who saved me from the Thals' disgusting attack." Sullivan paused. "On our women." He found it disgusting that it seemed the Thals had targeted the building, there'd been other attacks where the women in other parts of dome hadn't been as lucky.

"You are a proficient member of the Medical Elite Healer Sullivan. You are valuable." Nyder said. "Davros has hastened the implementation of the application of substance which will enhance the strength of the dome."

"Preventing something like this from happening again I hope?" Sullivan asked as he pulled down his shirt - straightening it and sat down gesturing at the opposite chair to Nyder who remained standing. "You didn't come all the way up here just to tell me that Nyder."

Nyder looked pleased. "No." He turned around and closed the door. "We have a prisoner."

Sullivan looked at him. "The Scientific Elite has a prisoner?"

Nyder indicated a yes.

"You have Elite with medical knowledge." Sullivan said simply.

"Davros has requested you. You have demonstrated your loyalty." Nyder said simply.

Sullivan leaned back into his chair, relieved for the first time in weeks this did not cause him pain. For weeks he'd only been able to lie on one side. As he'd found out the chemical weapon had burnt his back and part of his chest and arm.

There wasn't any permanent debilitating damage, only scarring. Also his hair would probably never regrow due to the scar tissue.

"You have someone who's a traitor," he watched Nyder. "Someone responsible for the attack on the pregnancy dorms?"

Nyder seemed pleased with the veracity of his question.

-/ - \\\\-

Sullivan had been down to the Scientific Elite bunker a few times. He very much preferred the Military Elite's spaces rather than down here. In the dome you had some idea of where the outside world was, even if the outside was not somewhere he wished to go.

"Nyder." Davros was waiting in a room.

"Davros. This is Healer Elite Sullivan," Nyder said after saluting.

Sullivan came to attention, though didn't snap a salute. Was carrying a bag in each hand.

"Sullivan. I have been informed of your actions in saving the women the Thals would so cruelly attack." Sullivan looked at Davros' sunken face and wondered how much he could sense of the outside world. He knew something of him. The central eye allowed him some sight.

"I wish to thank you Davros and the Scientific Elite. I have been informed Ravon pushed for me to have access to-" Sullivan began.

"Nonsense." Davros began. "The Elite must care for one other. Only we truly appreciate the intellect and capabilities of heightened intelligence."

Sullivan nodded. "Nyder implied you have a traitor responsible for the Thal attack?"

Davros turned around to look at Nyder. "He guessed Davros."

"Fascinating." Davros said turning back to Sullivan.

"Hardly much deduction." He paused. "When I found out they had attacked other dorms I wanted to kill them with my own two hands."

"That is interesting." Davros observed.

"That is not something we wish you to do to our prisoner Sullivan." Nyder warned.

"But you don't trust anyone in the dome?" Sullivan asked.

"Until we are sure, no." Nyder said as he walked over to a door. "This way."

"What do you wish me to do?" Sullivan asked Nyder and Davros as they walked towards a holding cell.

"Ready the prisoner for interrogation." Davros said simply.

Sullivan looked between the two and put down his bags. "How far do you wish me to prepare him?" Sullivan asked.

Years ago, before he'd arrived on Skaro he'd never think to have done anything like this. It was against the UN conventions, against the morals he held so dear.

But then he'd seen the execution camps that the Thals had.

He knew the Kaleds also had camps, yet, the Thals had targeted women, the medical facilities. He had been injured and bore the scars of war.

Sullivan didn't want to think it had changed him.

He didn't want to believe that his presence when Valyes regenerated...when he died, he didn't want to think, to believe it had changed him.

But it had.

Three years in a battlefield, in a war zone. It changed.

He'd seen people he'd brought back from the brink be wounded and gassed and...countless other things.

Nyder was looking from him to Davros.

"Nothing beyond your capabilities." Nyder said.

"We have devices which will extract information." Davros paused. "He merely needs to be prepared."

Sullivan nodded and crouched down to his bags and started to take things out. "I'll just take in one bag." He said by way of explanation.

"You came prepared." Nyder observed.

"I was not sure what you needed." Sullivan explained and looked to Nyder. "Does he know I was injured?"

"No." Nyder said.

Sullivan nodded. "Then push me into the cell, as though you're reluctant."

Nyder looked to Davros who nodded slightly.

-/

Nyder enjoyed being rough. It was one of his defining qualities, that and an ice cold, probably psychopathic exterior.

But that was what you needed to survive in a war zone. That's another of the many things Sullivan had learnt on Skaro.

Even the plants, those that survived, in the Wastelands tried to kill you. Varga plant poison was used by both sides to catastrophic affect.

The man was a member of the Military Elite.

Sullivan didn't recognise him.

"A Healer." He said looking up as the door slid shut with its signature tone.

Sullivan sat down with the bag close to him. There had been a few sharp materials within. He'd left those outside. Just in case.

Sullivan still wanted this man dead.

It was a concept, a drive that he considered he wouldn't have thought three years ago. He wasn't a violent chap. He was sporting, he had morals, he was a friendly doctor. That's what he'd thought. He was a member of the Royal Navy and upheld its principles and its codes.

But no one, no one on Earth had faced a society that had been at war for what was approaching a millennium..

Nothing could prepare him for that.

Nothing could prepare him for mercy killing his friend. A man he didn't even like, nor Valyes particularly liked him. A human. Mostly.

Now, after the attack, attack on the most vulnerable of Kaleds; the women, birthing the next generation. Sometimes, he felt as though he were Kaled, they were all he'd known for the past three years.

Sullivan pulled out a pouch. It contained a mostly water, some nutrients and a tiny amount of flavouring from the fruit, whatever it was that the Elite were given access to, he'd not been inclined to ask anyone, just in case it betrayed a lack of knowledge about cultural things.

It was produced by the Medical Elite at his insistence for soldiers in the field. It had enough nutrients in it for them to survive if shot. It had increased Kaled soldier survival rate by 15 percent in most cases. Even if his superiors had been sceptical at first.

"Drink." Sullivan said.

"What is it?" The man asked.

"Nothing that will harm you. Nutrients." Sullivan said as the man unscrewed the top of pouch sipping it slowly.

Sullivan noticed him grin. "Drammankin fruit."

Removing a sleeve from his bag he extracted two patches. As the man drank he readied the first and slapped it onto the man's neck.

"What...what was that?"

Sullivan remained calm, knowing what he had done was akin to torture as he peeled off the spent patch.

"You should know that I was in one of the birthing dorms when the Thals attacked." Sullivan said calmly.

The man looked at him a mixture of terror and anger as he tried to scoot away. "My legs. I can't feel my legs." He cried out.

"Your limbs will paralyse. It will pass." Sullivan began. "The pain will also begin."

"You...you poisoned me." He started.

"The drink is safe." Sullivan said calmly. The patches were used preparing Kaleds for surgery away from the Medical Elite buildings out in the dome residential towers, paralysis and then hyper-stimulation of the nervous system. Not something he had been familiar with, but something Kaled biology responded to.

Usually they were also knocked out so they could not experience the extreme pain.

Sullivan put the patch away in his bag and knocked on the door.

He stepped out as the man started to shout.

It was nothing like the way he had when the chemicals he eaten into his flesh as he'd held part of the structure up for the escaping pregnant women.

"What did you do?" Nyder asked.

Sullivan explained.

"Fascinating work Healer Elite Sullivan. Fascinating. I had known this was utilised by the Medical Elite but not for this." Davros praised.

Sullivan reached into his bag offering Nyder a smaller sleeve. "It contains a pain suppressor and a further dose of the nerve stimulation." He paused and looked between Davros and Nyder. "Use beyond that will be dangerous. The dose of nutrients in his stomach will have prepared him."

"I see. This should suffice." Nyder said.

"Begin work Nyder. I will escort Healer Elite Sullivan to the lifts." Davros said.

Sullivan began. "I don't wish to take you away from the interrogation Davros."

"Nyder is completely capable." Davros said.

They walked, or Davros glided in silence as they walked through the corridors of the Scientific Elite's underground bunker.

Valyes had explained Davros' role as the architect, the creator of the Daleks.

Sullivan had heard some things too, of Davros' projections of the Kaled race's final form. That of presumedly the Dalek.

He mentioned that to Davros who seemed surprised.

"That information should only be known to the Scientific Elite." He said accusingly.

"Medical supplies have been directed to the bunker Davros. Healers still converse. When we have the energy to." He admitted.

"Yes. Energy to war against the Thals." Davros mused.

"I just hope that the Kaled race has a future. In whatever form." Sullivan tried. He genuinely did hope the Kaleds lived on somehow. Even though he knew it unlikely. That, what Valyes had told him would come to pass in someway.

Perhaps the Doctor would succeed. Valyes and Sullivan himself had written in his fantastical diary for the Doctor to read, explaining his mission. Their mission.

Sullivan wasn't sure what he...he wasn't sure if the Doctor would be able to do it.

"We will live on Healer. And grow stronger against the Thals. When the time is right we shall take out rightful place." Davros said his voice growing in tone and veracity.

"I hope for an end of the suffering at the least. A rest, from war." Sullivan exhaled as they reached the lifts. Then asked Davros something he wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer to. "Do you rest Davros?"

"Rest?" Davros asked, the word seemed unfamiliar to him. "No Healer Elite Sullivan. I do not." He said with some finality.

The lift door slid open.

Sullivan did not know what to say, so simply stepped into the lift and came to attention as the door slid closed.

Davros remained watching him as the door shut.

Those dead eyes might haunt Sullivan. That's what he thought as the lift rose away from the bunker.

But it was the sound of the women screaming as the Thals' weapons impacted. That was what still haunted him.

-/


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Sullivan knew that some of the other Healers were calling him mad behind his back, even some to his face.

He had a comfortable, compared to some life and work. He worked within the Medical Elite within the dome. Completely protected from the Thals' attacks.

Yet had requested of the Military Elite to accompany soldiers outside the dome on patrols.

"You're mad Sullivan."

Sullivan looked up at Nyder. Not someone he thought could care about anyone.

"I don't." Nyder said when Sullivan mentioned this. "Davros considers you useful. It is unfortunate that you think to risk your life foolishly."

Sullivan nodded. He'd felt since Valyes' death and his own brush with death in the Thals' attack something missing.

Soldiers continued to die out in the Wastelands. Some of it, he was sure preventable. But no one reported everything and no one wanted to go out and risk the wastelands, the minefields, the Thal patrols, the Mutos, the Varga plants and the countless other things in what was left of Skaro's wilderness to find out. So soldiers barely young enough to hold up a weapon continued to die.

Many of them he had tried to save.

It was dragging him down and he was quickly realising why many of the Healer Elite 'escaped', if that was the right word into politics.

Or suicide.

"Davros can find other healers to assist with his experiments Nyder." Sullivan said.

Nyder looked at him. "You do not care for the future of our race?" Nyder accused.

"I care Nyder, for the present," Sullivan paused. "Whatever mutations will happen we still have to survive," Sullivan countered.

"Very well." Nyder made to leave.

"We cannot all simply hide in the bunker Nyder." Sullivan said in a level tone challenging the man who stood by Davros' side. It was a challenge Sullivan would do so to Nyder, but not to Davros.

Davros, Sullivan had discovered was formidable, even though he was restricted to his life support chair he commanded a fierce...passion in the Kaled people.

Nyder spun around to stare at him but said nothing.

Sullivan fancied were he within Nyder's control, within the Scientific Elite he might not get away with challenging Nyder and by extension Davros even in that way.

-/ - \\\\-

"Is this what you wanted Healer?" Challenged the soldier who was at least 15 years his junior and was effectively his superior. Although within Kaled society Sullivan had discovered Healers practically outranked everyone. It was a quirk of society, that they realised that it would be medicine and science that would help them survive rather than the military.

Sullivan looked up at the smoke ridden sky, it was overcast or maybe it was just smoke. They were hunkered down in one of the trenches that led away from the Kaled dome. It didn't quite lead to the Thal dome either. It was more just away from the Kaled dome.

"I wanted to understand Bovil." Sullivan said as he grabbed for his pack as he watched the smoke tumble out of the sky. "In the hope that I can save your lives before you end up on my operating table." Sullivan said quickly as he pulled on his mask.

The smoke came washing down like rain, but heavier, rougher and like sandpaper on any exposed skin.

Then it was gone and that was when the screaming started.

"Get him flat." Sullivan said pulling off his mask. "It's unbelievable." He said to himself as he took in the soldier's injuries. He had had a small cut, something Sullivan could easily have treated.

"He'll die, seen it before." One of the soldiers said.

The smoke had settled and began to form a frothy gel-like substance on the wound.

"No." Sullivan said as he pulled off his backpack.

He hadn't been able to get a very useful backpack, some of the soldiers had more useful older ones, but he had put into the one he had as much as he could.

"Hold him down." He ordered. "This is going to hurt old chap." He said as he withdrew a strong acid from his pack. He had intended it to be used to deal with localised Varga infection. On the few occasions he'd been able to test it it had worked. Some of the time.

The soldier bucked as soon as Sullivan started to apply the acid.

"Knock him out." The commander of the soldiers said.

"No!" Sullivan shouted. "He needs to be conscious for this to fight it." He said as the burning flesh fumes stung his eyes and handed the bottle and cap to one of the soldiers and extracted a small trowel-like tool from his bag.

Some of the Kaled's medical tools were practically medieval. But effective.

He used it to scrape out the slurry of Thal gas and Kaled liquified flesh before spraying a thick foam of anti-bacterial gel that would form a hard scab-like structure over the wound. Hopefully.

The soldier was still shaking under the hands of the other soldiers.

"You chaps should be able to let him go." Sullivan said as he tied the bandage off.

"Will he survive Healer?" Bovil asked.

"Hopefully." Sullivan said. "I still want to see how you get yourselves into trouble." Sullivan said with a half challenge.

-/ - \\\\-

"Drammankin Lake." Sullivan exhaled. The water was polluted and there was a film of something around the ground where they stood. They were also some distance from both domes.

They'd come out here because sometimes Thals came out here, searching through the rubble of what used to be Kaled territory, but was now mostly the Wasteland.

Sullivan had quickly learned all of this from various soldiers.

This was his twelfth journey out with the Military, and he was slowly learning and teaching them a few new things.

He also wasn't dead.

That was a positive.

It was still impressive. The ruins of Skaro.

Drammankin Lake.

What remained of it and the large mountain ranges that reached up in the background. Both the mountains and the lake were highly radioactive, meaning it wasn't ever safe to remain here for long.

But the soldiers had thought he should see it.

They were beginning to trust him.

"The waters are dangerous." Said one of the soldiers beside him.

"Not just the radiation?" Sullivan asked. He'd considered taking a sample of the water but his radiation detector suggested that even standing near it was questionable.

"Mutos bathe in it. Things live in it." He said in short blunt tones.

Sullivan looked at the lake again. "One day we'll reclaim it." He said, he was going to say 'once it was probably beautiful', but Kaleds had little regard for beauty Sullivan had discovered. When there was only war and combatting the Thals, beauty was something that began to not exist in any but the historical texts.

Brutish.

That's what he had once thought of the Kaleds.

Not now.

Now, Sullivan considered them survivors.

-/ - \\\\-

Sullivan looked up. He was packing.

A bag he'd been given by one of the soldiers, and commander he had worked with over the months when he had gone out of the dome.

The soldier, he was moving on into politics.

The itself bag was old.

Made out of complex synthetic materials that could no longer be engineered by the Kaleds. It had probably once been a uniform colour but no longer.

A sling sort of bag, one strap. Easier to swing around to extract things from.

Some ancient patches had been sewn on. Others added, hand sewn by soldier's bored hands.

Soldier.

Military.

Healer.

Kaled.

Skaro.

Battle.

"You're continuing Sullivan."

"Ravon." Sullivan said in greeting as he checked over vials.

There was one thing he had knew was missing from his medical kit.

Alcohol.

It would be simple enough to produce, if he could access the raw ingredients. But that would be very difficult.

The acids and other compounds worked well for most purposes. Also, Sullivan had concerns that if he produced alcohol it might be consumed. Even medical grade alcohol.

Sullivan was worried that he might drown himself in it. Were he to have access to it.

Sullivan had wondered this several times. Substance abuse did happen within the Medical Elite. No one was immune to that, especially as they had the most access to that sort of thing.

"I'd have thought you would have had enough of the wastelands." Ravon said looking around the for once quiet Medical Elite building, or rather this room was quiet.

"No." Sullivan said simply.

"Your eccentricity has not gone unnoticed in the capital." Ravon revealed.

Sullivan paused in his assembling of supplies.

"Some are suggesting you should join them there." He suggested.

Sullivan shook his head. He wouldn't, couldn't be involved in interfering. Valyes had told him why he could not. "No."

His response seemed to amuse Ravon. "I thought not Sullivan. You are a rare Kaled."

Sullivan paused in his checking of his bag to look at Ravon, but didn't say anything, allowing the younger man to continue.

"Loyal to your fellow Kaleds." Ravon continued.

Once, when he and Valyes had first arrived in the Kaled dome when the Kaleds spoke like that to him he wondered if they knew. If they knew he wasn't a Kaled. Wasn't of this planet.

The Time Ring he wore on his finger disguised his human heritage. Disguised what he was and where he was born.

According to Valyes, in his last body, the last man Sullivan knew before...before what he'd been asked to do, he'd said that Sullivan would be forever changed by his experiences, not just on Skaro, but with Valyes.

'Your biodata has mutated, changed Sullivan. Exposure to a Time Lord in the throws of a messy regenerative crisis. Not that you'll understand. Not yet. But you will as you travel...' Was one of the many things Valyes had said. He'd written other things in that magic diary of his, that he'd bequeathed to Sullivan.

"I want a future for the Kaleds Ravon. That means being out of the dome helping those on the frontline. Not..." Sullivan trailed off as he repacked the bag. It was far, far better than the one had been using. Even if it showed its age. It showed it well.

"Not politicking in the capital?" Ravon asked in an amused tone.

"It is well they do so. But it is not for me Ravon." Sullivan paused.

"A rare Kaled Sullivan." Ravon repeated.

-/ - \\\\-

Some of the mines were ancient devices that had sat in the minefield for well over 300 years. They were prone to exploding randomly when patrols of either side went near them.

The Military was investigating information that the Thals had been harvesting some of the mines in the minefield to extract the active explosive. Something called 'distronic explosive'. From what Sullivan gathered it caused 'distronic toxaemia' quickly fatiguing and then killing anyone who handled it unprotected.

The mines also spread what little was left after they exploded making them useful. The mines couldn't be manufactured any more. From what Sullivan understood the raw materials no longer existed for the Kaleds.

The minefield was even more grim than other locations on Skaro, the toxic fog rolled in all of the time. The valley that the minefield was primarily in obscured any sunlight that might poke through the clouds and there was little wind because of the high walls. But it meant that if the Thals attempted to break through one of the main entrances to the Dome they would be faced with a formidable obstacle.

The soldiers he was with had slowly learnt from him in the months he had been out with them and others like them. Treating wounds, applying the solutions and acids to cleans and destroy infections. It had helped bring the survivor rate of Kaled soldiers up at least 30 percent. It had been somewhat notable, but not largely.

Davros's work in the bunker was what mattered most of all. The weapons and future he was building.

They'd shot some Thals who were in the minefield, some distance away and had made their way over.

They would strip the bodies for their clothes and technology, nothing wasted, not in a war this long.

The Thals were dead, thorough yet efficient with machine gun fire; sprayed int the mists and fogs.

As Sullivan started to help one of the soldiers to de-clothe the Thal he ordered. "Stop."

"Healer?" Said the soldier beside him as Sullivan stood back.

Sullivan gestured. "Radiation sickness." He said as he pulled a secure pouch from an easy to access tab from his bag. ripping open the contents and handing one of the pouches to the soldier.

"Has anyone else touched them?" Sullivan asked in an authorial tone as he scrubbed down his hands and arms. The anti-radiation gel and wipes would thoroughly remove short exposure radiation from flesh to flesh contact.

"They must've been exposed outside for a longtime." One of the soldiers said moving the Thals' radiation meter from side to side. It didn't indicate any harmful exposure.

"They would have been dead in months." Sullivan commented as he dropped the wipe. His hands now tingling cold as the gel slowly dried.

"Waste of good ammunition." One of the soldiers said.

"Leave the weapons as well." Sullivan said. "If they've been somewhere to get this bad we don't want to bring it back to the dome."

"Record our position." The commander of this group of soldiers ordered nodding to Sullivan. "Note Healer Sullivan's observation."

-/

 _A/N:_

 _I had originally posted this story with a rating of T, I changed it up to M as I realised this story touches on a lot of mature subjects._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Despite his best efforts Healer Elite Sullivan had risen through the ranks of the Healer Elite. Eight years he had been on Skaro, the age, the war ages you he thought looking in the reflective surface.

It didn't age him as much as he thought. Supposedly that was the Time Ring's doing. Something Valyes hadn't told him but had written.

Sullivan had learnt, with Valyes' help to read the symbols and marks that made up Gallifreyan, but it wasn't until the years past since he'd gone that he understood all of its meaning, how to properly write in it, to understand it.

Sullivan was now even less answerable to anyone. Only to some within the Scientific Elite and the government.

He also felt like he knew much of the locations outside the dome. Drammankin Lake, the huge lake and its mountain ranges away from the dome. It was something that held a strange beauty, not that he confided this with anyone.

He'd theorised that it must also be a sink for a lot of the local radiation, or there was something lurking beneath its surface.

He'd thought of discussing these theories with Davros. But as the years had worn on Davros seemed to get more fanatical.

The complete protection of the dome had been completed barely 6 months ago after being promised to begin after his attack, its actual implementation had taken almost 4 years to complete.

It was a massive dome and a massive undertaking. Especially as those who were on the surface of the dome made for targets for the Thals.

Birth rates and mutations in population continued to slide in opposite directions from one another.

Sullivan knew this would happen, Valyes had told him. Davros and the Scientific Elite had told him. They knew better than anyone in the dome what was happening. It was what made Davros' experiments and projections so vital.

The chemical and mutagenic weapons used by the Thals over the past hundreds of years had and was continuing to have a disastrous affect on the Kaleds.

Sullivan didn't know if this problem also affected the Thals, and if he was really honest with himself he didn't care. He didn't care what happened to the Thals any more.

Sullivan wasn't sure when he stopped caring about the other side of the Kaled's war.

He knew it had begun before he had been shot by some Thals when he'd been on patrol outside the dome with some of the Kaled soldiers.

He had felt little guilt in firing back, even with the injured and surface displacement on his arm from the Thals' energy weapons fire.

He had been given tissue regeneration treatment on his left arm to replace the skin that had been warped and withered by the energy weapon the Thal had used.

Sullivan counted that incident amongst several that had gained him some further respect with the Kaled soldiers.

Ravon had said as much to him when he'd come to visit him.

Sullivan had not become friendly with many, Ravon was one of the few Kaleds that he had a good relationship with.

Sullivan had, as the years passed worked with many Kaleds, but they were still a hard people, hardened through war.

But he was counted among a very small few of the Elite be it Scientific, Military or Medical that a large amount of the soldiers of the military respected. Through both his work to keep capable intelligent soldiers out of the work factories and in other jobs and his experiences outside the dome.

With the former had had helped rehabilitate injured soldiers into medical work as nurses and then as Healers. These actions had not sat well with some in the Elite. Some believed that any imperfects within the Kaleds deserved to be tossed out into the Wastelands.

But many within the government believed this should only apply to those who had begun to mutate beyond the Kaled norm.

Sullivan hated that he had been part of this practice.

The Kaleds and he assumed the Thals did not have the capacity to care for people like the 'mutos'. Theirs was a society of survival, everyone worked to continue their society, to make sure there was a future for them.

Sometimes throughout the years Sullivan had forgotten on a few occasions that he'd had a life on Earth. A life with UNIT. Travel with the Doctor and Sarah.

Sometimes these memories had rendered him a shuddering mess on the floor.

His experiences outside the dome, his work away from the protections of the dome had earned him great respect.

Something that according to Ravon would have earned him some enemies in the government, fearful of an individual with favour in the military. Davros' supporters supposedly had viewed him as a threat for a while. But he had showed little interest in the pursuit of politics or personal power.

Again, it was something that had earned him respect amongst those young men and women who defended them all.

Although of the latter, only women proven not to be capable of birthing could pursue active military roles. All Kaleds understood this. It was something early on he had been conflicted about that women were almost genetic factories. But it was war, it always had been this way to preserve what the Kaleds had. All Kaleds understood their sacrifices.

-/

Sullivan leaned back into his chair, there were no patients at the moment that he had to directly take care of.

For now he was just waiting.

Valyes, that man who'd dropped him here. Dropped him into eight years of some of the most horrific things he had seen in his life. Who wasn't even responsible, not for what had happened, not really.

That man who he'd...

Sullivan didn't dwell on what he had done. Valyes, all those years ago had presented his case calmly and with that harsh Time Lord logic.

And Sullivan had done it because he was of sound mind and had witnessed the pain wrought to the Time Lord, multiple lifetimes worth.

Valyes, the Time Lord of the Celestial Intervention Agency had told him when the Time Lords had been aiming for with the open ended transmat beam. The signs to watch out for.

They had been diverted, but Valyes hadn't known by how much, or perhaps he hadn't wanted to tell Sullivan. He had written in the magic diary of his that he'd left to Sullivan.

Taught him how to write and read Gallifreyan.

It was only after he had...died that Sullivan really started to work out the detail of the Time Lord's language.

Then the phone rang. It wasn't a phone, no one called it that. But it was shaped like a phone and served the same function.

"Healer Elite Sullivan." He said answering it. It was Ravon. Two strangely dressed Thals had been discovered in section 101. "I see. Yes, I'll be down. It will be interesting." Sullivan said keeping his voice in the normal range. He had been suggesting for a while that there seemed to be a new type of Thal that was out in the wastelands. There had been some talk that the Thals were building robots, he'd not questioned this talk. Sullivan simply didn't want the Doctor or Sarah to be shot when they were encountered.

At least the Kaleds investigated, interrogated and then usually hanged their prisoners. The Thals tended to shoot on sight. Sometimes they took prisoners for whatever infernal war productions they used.

What the Thals got up to didn't concern him. He just didn't care about the Thals. Not after what they'd done.

"Yes. Transfer them to Command Headquarters, but put them into the isolation room Ravon. You know what the Wastelands is like this time of year and make sure your men clean themselves down." Sullivan put down the phone's receiver and tried not to become excited. There was still a long road to leaving Skaro.

A day he wasn't sure would ever come, or that he might die before the Doctor and Sarah ever turned up.

He hoped the old thing was alright. His warning to Ravon was justified, this time of year in the Wastelands produced some nasty fogs that got into the lungs.

The Doctor would be fine, respiratory bypass and other gubbins in a Time Lord's biology.

He walked around his desk and checked his sling backpack over once more and pulled on another of the soldier's gifts. It was an old coat, older than the bag, some sort of hard wearing synthetic from Skaro's past. He had sewn on patches he'd found within the medical building that identified him as a Healer not a soldier and threw the bag over himself.

He thought about _not_ strapping the gun to his hip and then decided to. It was a Healer's weapon. That's what one of the Scientific Elite had said Gharman, Sullivan recalled the man's name had passed it onto him, one of the few energy weapons small enough for a person to hold. From what he'd gathered, whispered around the bunker a larger version would end up in one of Davros' experiments possibly even the travel machine.

-/ - \\\\-

Passage down to the Command Headquarters was difficult, it had taken some time to get there.

Ravon was waiting looking uncomfortable.

"Well?" Sullivan asked.

"My men have cleaned up as you ordered Healer Elite Sullivan." Ravon reported.

Sullivan nodded. "Good." Sullivan paused. "What is it Ravon?"

"The prisoners attempted to escape. They were intercepted by Nyder. He has ordered that they are released into the Scientific Elite for interrogation by his special unit."

Sullivan nodded. He had hoped to have a good chat with the Doctor, possibly even get him and Sarah back to the Medical Elite building.

"The female appeared to be suffering from the repeated exposure in the Wasteland." Ravon said.

"I see." Sullivan mused. "I'll prepare them for transfer. But I will need some time with them if they've been exposed to the cleansed air in here and then the Wastelands again." Sullivan said.

Ravon nodded. "I informed Nyder I had requested your attendance."

Sullivan nodded. He had continued to have a working association with Nyder, and to some extent Davros. Though he had not seen Davros for a few years, since Davros began to work in earnest on what Sullivan assumed to be the final Kaled mutation and the Dalek.

"I'll attend to them," Sullivan said exhaling.

"Do you need an escort?" Ravon asked.

Sullivan looked to the General and shook his head. "I am armed Ravon, two Thals will not pose a problem."

"Not for a Healer who has confronted a Slyther in the Wastelands." Ravon said, making a rare joke.

-/

As the door slid closed Sullivan found himself lost for words.

The Doctor was sat against the wall with his hat over his face. Sarah, the old thing was also slumped against the wall, breathing harshly with her eyes closed.

"Are you the tea lady?" Rumbled the Doctor.

"No. I'm not Doctor." Sullivan said calmly.

The Doctor sat bolt upright and looked at him. "Harry Sullivan." He said eyes wide.

Sarah opened her eyes. "Harry?" She asked woozily trying to stand up.

"Sit down old girl." Sullivan said with a softness to his voice he had forgotten he had in him. He tried to ignore the Doctor's gaze as he pulled off his bag and put it on the bench seat between the Doctor and Sarah.

Reaching into an internal pocket he handed the Doctor Valyes', now his diary.

"This will hopefully explain Doctor." He said as the Doctor took his cautiously.

"Harry, this is a CIA notebook." The Doctor looked at him.

"I know." Sullivan said as he placed a patch on Sarah's neck, her eyes went wide. "Stay calm Sarah. You've been exposed to the Wastelands."

"Will she be alright Harry?" The Doctor asked looking over at Sarah.

"How long were you out there?" Sullivan asked.

"No longer than half an hour." The Doctor said looking over to Sarah.

"Doctor is that all? It feels longer, wondering around that minefield." Sarah said.

The Doctor must have read something into his body language. "Harry, what is wrong with the minefield?"

Sullivan shook his head as he listened to Sarah's chest, surprising her as he slipped the stethoscope onto his chest. She looked like she was going to say something.

"Nothing more lethal than anywhere else you could have landed." He said and then looked at Sarah. "That patch has stimulated your biosystems Sarah." He paused gathering a large tube. "This will hurt." He said drawing the gas up within. "It will heal and pull out the contaminants within your lungs old thing." He said as he prepared the bag.

"Harry, you're...different." She started, her voice cracking.

"Try not to speak Sarah. I need you to hold this gas in your lungs until you think you're going to pass out, then one long breath into this." He held up a bag. "Try not to vomit." He added.

"Wh-" Sarah opened her mouth to ask. It was this action that Sullivan used to inject the gas into her mouth. The pressurised gas forced itself down her throat.

Sarah, bless her looked devilishly angry.

"Hold it old thing, for as long as you can." He ordered and gave her the bag. It contained some analysis crystals which would hopefully turn yellow to indicate it had pulled most of the contaminants out of her lungs.

-/

He turned the notebook over in his hands, it was a CIA notebook. No one other than a Time Lord should have been able to handle it. But with the familiarity that Harry handled it he had obviously been writing in it for some time.

It began in Gallifreyan, Valyes of the Celestial Intervention Agency requesting he pursue a mission for the Time Lords.

As he read of what had happened and what Valyes had omitted he looked to Harry, the human being in his charge looking after Sarah.

Skaro.

He knew it had felt familiar when they had materialised here. But the severity of landing on the surface by open ended transmat had shocked his senses for a brief period.

Then he had almost been blown up by a mine and they'd discovered they were in the middle of a minefield. Only Sarah's quick thinking had stopped him from being injured.

As he read quickly through Valyes' notes he looked again quickly to Harry Sullivan as he diagnosed Sarah's injuries.

He frowned, considering what Surgeon Lieutenant Harry Sullivan had been asked to do to Valyes. Something few Time Lords could ask another, it was something he was not sure he would have the...confidence to carry out. To kill a Time Lord, even in a regenerative crisis.

Then the writing changed, it was a human's hand, in English, but then as he flipped the pages quickly he was forced to pause.

Words of Gallifreyan intermingled with words of English, and then whole passages in Gallifreyan, but in a human's hand. Then a third language, he presumed that was the native language here. The _Kaled_ 's language.

He watched as Sarah exhaled a gas into a bag that Harry was holding.

"Just rest for a moment old girl." Harry Sullivan was saying, sounding as though he was attempting to soften a tone he had used for some time.

-/

Sullivan allowed Sarah to lean back against the wall. The gas had a slight anaesthetic effect. Studying the bag there were a satisfying amount of yellow crystals forming.

"She'll recover fully in a few moments as it wears off." He said to the Doctor who was looking to him.

"How long Harry?" He asked handing him back the diary.

"How long?" Sullivan repeated.

"Have you been here, waiting Harry?" The Doctor prompted.

"Valyes was alive for three years." Sullivan recalled. "Jolly pain in the arse." He paused and looked to the Doctor. "Eight years in this war zone." In this nightmare. He added to himself and then looked and focused on the Doctor. "You understand your task? Valyes was insistent that I should make you understand." He paused. "As he wouldn't be here."

The Doctor held his gaze for a long time, or it felt like a long time. "I understand Harry." He looked past him to Sarah. "Will Sarah recover?"

"Doctor...?" She muttered coughing.

Sullivan turned away from the Doctor replacing the diary in his sling pack and extracting a pouch of a drink.

"Here old girl, drink this. Slowly. Try not to cough." He said pressing it into her hand.

She looked blearily at him as she unscrewed the cap. "What is it?"

"No tea Harry?" The Doctor wondered.

"No. It's Drammankin fruit drink. Hardly any of it in it anymore." He mused to himself. "It'll keep you up and running." He paused.

The Doctor looked at him. "For what?"

"You're going to be transferred to the bunker." He paused listening. "You've caught the attention of Nyder when you tried to escape. I'll catch up with you later." Then the door slid open.

"Healer Elite Sullivan." General Ravon was standing outside looking concerned.

"General Ravon. I was just finishing." He reported as he zipped up his bag slinging it over his chest. "The female will need to recover."

"Very well it will need to be en-route to the bunker." He said.

Sullivan nodded. "I've cleansed her body of the Wasteland's effects." He paused stepping out of the cell as Ravon waved his soldiers in.

"Hey! Watch out!" Sarah exclaimed as she was grabbed as was the Doctor. "Doctor what about H-"

"Later Sarah." The Doctor said in a loud tone cutting her off.

"General..." Sullivan began as Sarah and the Doctor were dragged off.

"Yes?" Ravon looked to him curiously.

"I should like to be kept informed about those two." Sullivan said in a neutral, yet slightly curious tone.

"Oh, Sullivan? You care about the Thals?" Ravon asked amused.

"Hardly." Sullivan said. "But those two...something curious I think about them."

"Indeed." Ravon nodded. "Are they Mutos Sullivan?"

Sullivan pretended to consider the question. "They're very healthy if they are." He looked to Ravon. "Patrols have found Mutos in various stages recently."

"The Thals are using the healthiest for their rocket Sullivan." Ravon commented.

Sullivan nodded. "The dome will hold. I have every confidence in Davros' formula."

Ravon nodded. "I know you do Sullivan."

-/ - \\\\-

"Doctor why didn't Harry help us?" Sarah asked, slipping the vaguely sweet and watery drink into her jacket pocket. They'd been transported through various corridors and shoved down into some uncomfortable chairs where what looked like a bunch of scientists were sitting around working.

"Harry's been here lot longer than we have Sarah." The Doctor said looking to her.

"How long, and where is here anyway?" Sarah said looking around.

"We're on Skaro Sarah." He said.

"Skaro?" Sarah asked, she'd heard of that before.

"The home planet of the Daleks." The Doctor intoned.

"The Daleks?" Sarah whispered. "But Doctor that means..."

"Harry's been here for eight years Sarah." The Doctor continued. "A brief flash for some, but for a human..."

"Eight years." Sarah whispered to herself.

"Something we must keep to ourselves Sarah." The Doctor intoned. "It seems Harry has established a life here."

"A life? Doctor if he's been here eight years then he knows about..." Sarah began.

The Doctor cut her off. "I know Sarah." He hissed. "He knows well." He continued in a sombre tone. "The Time Lords gave me the mission. Harry was just caught waiting."

-/

Sarah watched curious as the scientist who had been interrogating them snapped to attention and then...something came into the room.

It looked like it had been a man, maybe, at some point. This it seemed was Davros.

She could see the inspiration for Daleks in the base of his chair. He looked almost not alive.

"Life support systems keep him alive." The Doctor said in a soft tone to her.

"What sort of life is that?" She asked.

"One of war." The Doctor said.

Then Davros revealed his 'Mark Three Travel Machine', the Doctor kept calling it a Dalek. It was, just not as...Sarah wasn't sure. It didn't look as refined as the ones she saw on that Exxilon planet. Even though those ones had to replace their guns to escape the power blackout.

Then it seemed to focus in on the Doctor and herself.

-/

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief having been rescued from being shot by the Dalek by the man who had been interrogating them.

-/

"Doctor, if Harry's been here for eight years why does he look the same as when we last saw him?" Sarah asked, they'd been taken to some cells. They were featureless and as far as cells she'd found herself in quite dull.

"Does he?" The Doctor asked her curiously, probing almost.

Sarah paused to consider what she'd seen of Harry, when they'd seen him, all dressed up, like the other Kaleds. "No he looked..." She trailed off. He still looked like Harry Sullivan but. "Tired. Worn out, but..."

The Doctor smiled a sad smile. "He has a Time Lord Time Ring, it slows the effect that local time has on the wearer Sarah." He explained. "He arrived here with a Time Lord. They integrated themselves into Kaled society."

"Oh." She said. That explained how he'd come to be here. "But if the Time Lord had a task, why didn't he do it?"

The answer surprised and worried her. That a Time Lord could die or be injured beyond regeneration... and the way the Doctor spoke about it.

"Do you think Harry's alright?" Sarah asked.

"As far as anyone here is concerned Sarah he is a Kaled." The Doctor replied.

"But what about-"

The Doctor shooshed her as the door made a noise and began to open. Revealing a moment later Ronson, the scientist who saved them from the Dalek earlier.

Sarah listened as he explained how Davros had announced the name of his machine; the Dalek.

As Ronson explained it they, his faction needed someone to contact their government authorities about Davros. The Doctor looked to her for a brief moment, Sarah thought he was about to tell her to stay here, she was completely ready to say no. She wasn't going to sit here and wait for him to go gallivanting off.

-/ - \\\\-

Healer Elite Sullivan eased the woman down, she had had a particularly difficult birth of triplets. One had needed to be destroyed, with its mutations it would not last long and the resources needed to keep it alive could not be spared. Could never be spared.

She had held the remaining babies for a few minutes before waving them away, they would be taken care of. She would be moved out of this facility shortly and onto recovery and rehabilitation.

-/

Writing in his notes later he filled in the requisite information including how many further births she might be capable of. Tapping his pen on the page he looked through her file, she had cleared most of the medical tests and was clear of mutations from Thal weaponry despite falling victim to two bombings on the dome's edge. He wrote 5 in the column, knowing the woman would probably push it to six or even seven if the Scientific Elite's new developments were approved by the government.

As he was closing the notes he realised someone was knocking on the outside of his office. Which was unusual.

Rising from his desk he walked over.

"Sarah?" He said startled to find Sarah Jane Smith standing outside looking uncomfortable. He looked around the corridor.

"There's no one here, the Doctor's off convincing the government, I said I wanted to come here, have a look around." Sarah said walking in as Sullivan closed the door.

"Have a seat." Sullivan said sitting opposite her behind his desk he shuffled away the papers.

The old thing looked at him with concerned eyes and Sullivan found him smiling uncontrollably. "It is good to see you Sarah."

Sarah looked at him, with that careful gaze of a journalist, which reminded him of the look some of the Scientific Elite gave him sometimes. "What happened Harry?"

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Here, to you?" She pressed. "I want to..." She trailed off.

"Help?" He snorted a dark laugh. "You can't help Sarah. I've been in a war zone." He paused. "Sometimes a nightmare. Sometimes I wanted to kill myself."

Sarah looked up at him hard. "Oh, Harry I-"

He shook his head. "I didn't. I didn't even try."

"I saw Davros." She tried.

"How is he?" Sullivan asked curiously.

Sarah's eyes went wide. "You've met him?"

He nodded. "A few years ago I was injured in a Thal attack. We chatted. I've assisted Nyder and Davros in various interrogations here and there."

Sarah opened her mouth. "But Harry they're-"

He looked at her cooly. "Fascists? Evil? Deranged?" He smirked darkly.

Sarah nodded. "Yes."

"And what of bombing women's shelters, dormitories full of children? Toxic chemicals that cause dangerous mutations in the population, a declining one at that. Young soldiers fighting and dying in a battlefield against a dangerous enemy? That's evil as well?" Sullivan asked.

Sarah nodded slowly. "Yes Harry."

"That's what the Thals have done to the Kaleds Sarah. I bare the scars of those attacks." He continued coldly. "I've seen the birth rates, the mutations coming into the Kaled population. Today, a woman birthed triplets."

Sarah opened her mouth.

"One had to be destroyed Sarah. Too mutated to survive for any good amount of time." He continued in a cold tone.

"Destroyed?" She said in cracking voice.

"Resources old thing. We've been at war for a long time." Sullivan continued cooly.

"We?" She asked.

Sullivan exhaled. "I'm not deluded to think I'm a Kaled Sarah. But I have lived here for quite a while waiting."

Sarah rose from her chair. "I"m not sure I know you anymore Harry Sullivan." She said.

Sullivan also rose from his chair. "I'm not sure I know me anymore Sarah." He forced himself to soften his tone. "I hope you'll help me to work out who I was."

Sarah as about to open her mouth again when there was a knock on his door.

Waving his hand in front of the panel it revealed the Doctor.

"Doctor!" Sarah exclaimed.

"The government's agreed to halt Davros' experiments." The Doctor said as he looked around the office and went and flopped down in Sullivan's chair.

"And Davros has agreed?" Sullivan asked.

"He won't?" The Doctor looked at him curiously.

Sullivan shook his head.

"Harry's met him." Sarah provided.

"Have you now Harry?" The Doctor mused.

"A few years ago now. He's become more..." Sullivan trailed off.

"Insane?" Sarah tried.

"Driven to preserve the Kaled race," Sullivan began. "At least at first, that's what it was, according to the Medical and Scientific Elite he was one of the greatest Kaleds. He's one of the oldest Kaleds too." Sullivan paused. "During the past couple of years he's become more driven. More focused on the mutation problem. The last big project he worked on was the protective coating on the dome." Sullivan said. "That took a few years to implement completely. Now we've been safe from the Kaleds. Davros has spent most of his time on the mutation question and the travel machine. Along with most of the Scientific Elite."

The Doctor was nodding.

"If you knew what he was Harry, why didn't you do something to stop him?" Sarah asked reasonably.

Sullivan looked to her. "Turn off his life support system old girl? Kill him?" He exhaled. "To avert the Daleks is the Doctor's task. I needed to wait, to catch up with you and the Doctor."

The Doctor suddenly sat bolt upright. "What did you say about the Dome?"

"Davros created some sort of hardening solution for it?" Sarah looked to Sullivan.

"Yes." The Doctor said. "I think we should speak with the scientists. I've just had a worrying thought." The Doctor said taking off.

Sarah rushed to follow him, looking back to him. "Aren't you coming Harry?"

Sullivan looked at her. "I'll find you, when the time is right."

-/ - \\\\-

"Doctor, what did Harry mean?" Sarah asked as they crawled through a tunnel system towards the Thal dome on a hunch of the Doctor's.

"What did he say Sarah?" The Doctor asked her.

She'd only had time to think about what Harry had said until now, it had all been a big rush to get here. "He said 'I'll find you, when the time is right'."

"He said that?" The Doctor asked.

"Yes." Sarah confirmed.

The Doctor was silent for some time.

"Harry has been exposed to a Time Lord in crisis Sarah." He eventually said several minutes later when they crawled out into a clearing, one with lots of noises. None of them nice.

"So?" Sarah asked looking around, wrapping the coat she'd been given against the chill in the air.

"Harry knows more than he thinks. We will need to be careful Sarah." He said looking at her with intensity.

-/ - \\\\-

The Kaled dome, his whole world rumbled again. He'd already been told that the Thals had fired something at the Dome, that was degrading the protections on it.

Sullivan had already figured it out, what had happened and what the Doctor had worked out.

That Davros had betrayed them all, because the government had turned on him.

He was even more insane than first thought.

Sullivan quickly packed up his sling pack, itself had been a gift and something he had used and owned for a few years. He placed all the medical supplies he had within reach along with the diary, writing implements and what few menial mementos he had from his time, his _years_ here.

Kaleds did not keep many mementoes and there were no photos to be had of his time, but his memories did fine for that. Burned into his memory, those that weren't...Sullivan dismissed the thoughts as the room shook again.

He would need to get to the bunker. It was where Davros would be. It was where the Doctor would likely be and he hoped it was where Sarah would be if she had any sense.

-/ - \\\\-

Sarah held her breath as a Dalek rolled past. It might look more primitive than the Daleks she'd first seen and it might seem more...she couldn't quite put her finger on it. But they were still Daleks.

Deadly creatures.

"Sarah," hissed the Doctor.

Sarah realised that the Daleks had passed them by and the Doctor had the floor up again. "Where are we going?"

"Back to the Kaled Dome." He said.

"Why?" She asked once they were 'safe' below the Thal dome.

"Because I have to complete my mission for the Time Lords." He said in a low tone.

-/ - \\\\-

"Healer Elite Sullivan." Nyder seemed surprised to find him.

It had taken longer than Sullivan had thought to get away from the dome and to the bunker, several of the accesses had been blocked.

Snapping to attention, Sullivan looked at Nyder. Technically he sort of outranked Nyder. Had Nyder been anyone else who wasn't special assistant to Davros that is. "I came down here Nyder, whoever the traitors they will have died in the dome from the Thal attack." Sullivan could sense Nyder's suspicion, but he did not need to fake his feelings for the Thals. He had survived multiple Thal attacks, mercy killed...Sullivan had lost count of the soldiers who had needed their lives ending after what they had been subjected to from the Thals' attacks and he had born witness to the power the Thals used against the Kaleds.

"Good." Nyder paused and gestured they continue walking. "Your services may be required. Davros is interrogating two intruders for information." Nyder explained calmly.

"A new method of information extraction and coercion?" Sullivan asked.

"Improved from the last Thal spy bombers." Nyder said simply.

Sullivan nodded. Sarah should be strong enough to hold out against a high level of interrogation from that device. "That will be efficient. They will not need much care following that." He said, telling the truth. Speaking with Nyder was often dangerous, now, especially so that the Doctor had arrived.

They came to the entrance to the main Scientific Elite area. "You may wait-"

Sullivan halted Nyder in his speech. "I would like to see the mutations Nyder." Nyder seemed surprised. "They are the future with the destruction of the dome." Sullivan tried not to think about the woman who had given birth or the countless soldiers who were in recovery, or the newest group of women who had been impregnated this very day or...any of it.

That the dome might fail, might collapse had always been a possibility, but Davros' promises had shown over the last few years that they needn't be concerned.

"Very well." Nyder gestured down the corridor. "You are aware of the location Healer Elite Sullivan."

Sullivan snapped off a quick salute.

-/ - \\\\-

"The future of the Kaleds." Sullivan said looking through the access window. He daren't go in. The multiple vats with the incubating mutants were what the Kaled race would become.

He knew that, the Scientific Elite knew that, even many of his fellow Medical Elite knew it.

The Kaled race was a dying, mutating one. It was why so much trust had been placed in Davros. He had shown they could survive it.

Through countless experiments into the mutations, ethics...was something Sullivan had not been required to think on for a long while...Davros had uncovered one of the final forms.

At least, a final form where most of a Kaled's intelligence, its thinking, brain and most of its nervous system would survive. Looking here at the incubators, Sullivan wondered, he had briefly been granted a year or two ago by an associate in the government of what a full size mutant, one of these mutations in the incubators, fully grown would look like. These had been based on Davros and the Scientific Elite's research and development. It had been...not bipedal, some of the mutations in the population that didn't survive suggested of that. It had spoken for the need of a travel machine. Even some sort of computer interface.

He had been asked for his opinion. This was something he had not given and eventually passed on the information and decisions to another of the Medical Elite. He could not become involved, not in this, especially with the task the Doctor had been given.

"Watching over the future of the Kaleds Harry?" Said a voice of the Doctor behind him.

"Healer Sullivan?" Gharman was with the Doctor and Sarah. Sullivan turned and saw Karvell lingering down the corridor.

"I escaped the dome before its destruction." He said closing the observation screen. "I'll accompany you." Sullivan said, he wasn't sure he wished to be present as the Doctor prepared to carry out his orders. Instead he'd accompany Gharman to confront Davros about the Daleks.

"Harry-" Sarah began.

Sullivan shook his head. "I'll be safe." His hand went to his energy weapon strapped to his thigh. Sarah made a face at him.

"I didn't mean that." Sarah said.

-/ - \\\\-

Sarah watched Harry go off with the other Kaleds, she turned back to the Doctor who was watching her watch Harry. "He's really changed hasn't he Doctor?"

"He arrived here a young surgeon and has spent eight years in war Sarah." The Doctor said seemingly listening through the door.

"But, they're...they're what the Daleks were." Sarah tried.

"Evil?" The Doctor wondered.

Sarah opened her mouth to agree. "He could get into trouble Doctor."

"Harry's been around these people a lot more than us Sarah." The Doctor aimed his sonic whatsit at the door.

"Doctor what are you-" She started to say as the Doctor walked into the room.

-/ - \\\\-

Sullivan looked to Davros who seemed to be looking around the whole room, taking them all in. It seemed too easy.

Davros was always ruthless, and had become even more so in the past few years. Perhaps as the mutations in the Kaled race became all the more obvious.

Sullivan suspected that Davros would do something, probably to weed out the remaining scientists that opposed him. Sullivan doubted that Davros would leave such a thing to chance, even though as the meeting ended and Gharman no doubt went off to find the Doctor, Davros was muttering to Nyder.

Sullivan slipped into the crowd of Scientific and Military Elite, moving along a rear corridor that linked up with several of the outer corridors. Curious to see if he was correct.

Sullivan walked calmly along the corridors, now that the Thal bombing had ended everything seemed quiet.

Hardly peaceful.

Sullivan would be glad to leave here. And, if he was honest with himself, saddened that it had ended like this. Even though he knew it would, the tales Valyes had told him of Skaro's history, or what would very likely happen.

That maybe the Doctor would interfere, he hoped he would have an effect. But as Valyes' regenerations went on he became much more honest with him.

Then as he rounded another corridor preparing to return to the Scientific Elite rooms he came upon three Daleks.

Sullivan stopped frozen for a moment.

"Halt!" Cried one of the Daleks. "Identify yourself."

"He is a Healer." Said another and Sullivan for a moment breathed a moment's of relief. Maybe, he hoped that the Kaled respect for Healers had been carried on into the Daleks?

"Healer Elite Sullivan." He said answering the first Dalek's question. "You are the future of the Kaleds."

The three Daleks turned around to give him their attention rather than the door they were lined up in front of.

"Yes. Healer." They said.

Sullivan then decided to tell them something. Because whatever Davros was, what he had done for the Kaleds, he had still, Sullivan was sure done it. "Davros gave the Thals the formula that protected the dome. Davros destroyed the Kaleds." He paused looking at the Daleks, whatever they were they would live on. "Know that you are the future of the Kaleds. But understand his role."

The Daleks stared at him for a long while, their weapons he felt were pointed at him the whole time. Then one of the Daleks spoke. "We understand Healer." It said and then the three turned around away from him to return to facing the corridor.

-/ - \\\\-

Sullivan regarded the Muto with some suspicion, but Sarah seemed to know him, having rescued him and other prisoners while in the Thal dome with the Doctor. Supposedly the Thals were mining the exit to the bunker with explosives.

"Go Muto, we have our own escape." Sullivan said in a short tone.

The Muto regarded him with a sneer.

"Harry, he's-" Sarah started.

Sullivan shook his head. The Mutos were...unfortunate and dangerous.

"Sevrin, it's okay, he's a friend. Listen, go, tell Bettan to blow the tunnel now." She said.

The Muto looked to the Doctor who nodded.

"Have you done everything you needed?" Sullivan asked.

"A Dalek finished off the circuit on the incubator room while you were off...where were you Harry?" Sarah asked, perhaps, demanded.

"Wandering the groves." Sullivan replied. "And the tapes of your interrogation?"

"Destroyed with a Dalek gun." The Doctor said.

Sullivan nodded. "Then this is it."

Down the corridor he could just about hear the sounds of the Daleks' weapons and the shouts of extermination.

"Doctor what's that?" Sarah exclaimed.

"Davros." Sullivan said as he slipped the Time Ring off his finger. "Touch the Time Ring." He said as he expanded out as they each touched it.

"Now what?" Sarah asked.

The Doctor looked at him curiously.

Sullivan thought thought the mental processes that Valyes had taught him, just in case the Doctor was incapacitated. Then as he opened his eyes the room, the Kaled bunker and Skaro all melted away.

-/

 _A/N:_

 _I've omitted a lot of_ _ **Genesis of the Daleks**_ _as I'm loathed to rewrite scenes word for word, so I'm just assuming that if you're reading this you're familiar with the story itself. Also I wanted to keep this story told (primarily) from Sullivan's point of view._

 _Because Sullivan isn't with the Doctor and Sarah things change and some stuff doesn't happen_ _ **exactly**_ _as it does in the TV story._

 _Basically everything with Sarah in the Wastelands and with the Thal's rocket doesn't happen._

 _Omitting this doesn't change very much, Sarah's contribution to the rocket isn't significant enough that her not being there wouldn't change anything._

 _It's the Doctor and Sarah that go to the Thal Dome not the Doctor and Harry. Somehow Sarah still meets Sevrin and the others and that all still happens._

 _Basically any of the scenes that Harry and the Doctor might have had Sarah and the Doctor now have._


End file.
